Book Club August Review: Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

If you’re following us on TikTok, you would already know that I went to Toppings & Company in Bath and picked one of the wrapped books on the Blind Dates with a Book table for the month of August. And if you haven't seen the video yet, go to TikTok now and follow us!

Camp Damascus follows the story of Rose Darling who is haunted by an eerie woman with sagging skin and can't stop regurgitating flies at the dinner table. As she notices strange events happening around her religious community, she begins to question the sinister things at play behind the apparently successful gay conversion camp.

Our Rating

⭑⭑⭒⭒⭒

Both Kay and I really wanted to like this book because the premise was promising, and the book cover is gorgeous. But we should have known to never judge a book by its cover and that stories with unique plots don’t always deliver. Unfortunately, this was the case with Camp Damascus.

***Spoiler Alert*** - The next section will most likely ruin some of the surprises in the book if you haven't already read it, so read on with caution!

Our Comments

• The Genre: I was actually quite excited about this book because I remembered last October's book club pick (Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle), and I had a feeling that Camp Damascus would fill my need for a good horror. And the book did start off that way! In the first half, the suspense and the creepy demon tethered to Rose actually raised my heartbeat and made me wonder whether I was capable of turning the pages in the dark, but unfortunately Tingle lost me halfway through the book when Rose easily figured out how to kill a demon. I mean, how scary can these creatures really be when they can't even survive a fire?

• The Characters: Both Kay and I thought the protagonist was likeable, and felt that it was refreshing to read from the perspective of an autistic character. Rose was at first a naive woman with a strong faith, but as her memories slowly returned and the suppressed desires came to the surface, she took matters into her own hands. For the most part, the characters seemed distinct enough, but I was a bit disappointed by the portrayal of the villains. The therapist, the pastor and, in some ways, Rose's father all seem to be one person. They acted and spoke in the same way, so it didn't really feel like the stakes were raised when Rose and her friends overcame one hurdle after the other.

• The Plot: We can all agree that Tingle knows how to sell a plot and make readers intrigued by the story. Camp Damascus did well in the first half, hooking us with the fascinating portrayal of a cult and feeding us just enough information to stay engaged. We didn’t see Martina dying so early in the book coming, and the shock factor succeeded in keeping us curious about how the rest of the story would unfold. However, things just became a bit too convenient when Rose arrived at Saul’s house, and I had to stop reading and question why a good story would take such a ridiculous turn. The death of Rose’s and Saul’s demons was so anticlimactic, I thought for sure they would somehow return to wreck havoc. But I was disappointed to find out that the most interesting character (Rose’s demon, Pachid) was indeed just dead. There were more moments like this in the second half of the book, but I won’t go into details. Apart from the convenient plot beats and the unsuccessful bread crumbing which outcome we could sniff from a mile away, we also thought the dialogue was cheesy and some things just didn’t make sense. I mean, how many rich people live in that town? Camp Damascus isn't necessarily cheap, and mentioning that parents all over the world send their children to the place doesn't explain it enough.

• The Message: Don't get me wrong. I thought the demon characters were one of the better parts of the book, but the problem with using demons in a story that speaks up against religious communities and their homophobic views is that it can feel too literal. By all means, use demons as a metaphor, but maybe don't say he's 'literally facing down his demons'. I don't want a book to spoon feed me with the theme. I wished Tingle would have developed the demon characters further so they could have had more of an impact on the story.

  
  

Would We Recommend It:

CY - It had a lot of potential, but unfortunately the execution fell a bit flat for me, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Kay - I enjoyed the beginning half of the book a lot, but the last half was so disappointing that unfortunately I can't recommend this book to anyone but my enemies.

If you have read this book, what do you think of the ending? Were you also gripped at the start but began to lose interest in the second half? Or did you enjoy the absurdity of it all from beginning to end?